I am a camera, with its shutter open. Someday, all of this will be developed, printed, fixed.
Christopher IsherwoodHis life has been lived, so far, within narrow limits and he is quite naรฏve about most kinds of experience; he fears it and yet is wildly eager for it. To reassure himself, he converts it into epic myth as fast as it happens. He is forever play-acting.
Christopher IsherwoodBut your book is wrong, Mrs. Strunk, says George, when it tells you that Jim is the substitute I found for a real son, a real kid brother, a real husband, a real wife. Jim wasn't a substitute for anything. And there is no substitute for Jim, if you'll forgive my saying so, anywhere.
Christopher IsherwoodCalifornia is a tragic country โ like Palestine, like every Promised Land. Its short history is a fever-chart of migrations โ the land rush, the gold rush, the oil rush, the movie rush, the Okie fruit-picking rush, the wartime rush to the aircraft factories โ followed, in each instance, by counter-migrations of the disappointed and unsuccessful, moving sorrowfully homeward.
Christopher Isherwood